Summary
- How YouTube Turned Pre and Post Match Attention Into Ad Inventory: YouTube’s Creator Pulse report, published mid-World Cup, showed 66% of Gen Z fans use YouTube before and after live sport. YouTube calls this the surround sound of the game. Erling Haaland is now named as a creator, not just a player. If fandom happens around the match, who owns that window?
- Why Unrivaled’s Free Coffee Club Sold Out in Under an Hour: Unrivaled’s off-season Coffee Club lands in Chicago on 24 July, with Thorne supplements mixed into the drinks rather than badged on the cups. Every free reservation slot filled in under 60 minutes. When a free event sells out that fast, that’s a demand signal worth capturing.
- Why Caleb Hammer Built a Second Front Door Around YouTube’s 30% Cut: Hammer just launched a standalone Hammer Elite app via Uscreen, serving his 115,000 paying subscribers. He’s kept his YouTube membership tier live too. Is this smart diversification, or a crack in creator platform trust?
- Why TikTok Made Live the Last Place AI Isn’t Allowed to Fake It: TikTok Shop has banned AI-generated voices and pre-recorded narration from all shopping livestreams. Animated avatars can’t fill more than half the frame. Violations now dent the seller’s whole account rating. TikTok is drawing a line: live is where AI can’t fake authenticity.
- Why Netflix Fixed Its MLB Broadcast in Six Weeks: Netflix’s first MLB game in March was slammed as one big Netflix ad. The 13 July Home Run Derby was almost entirely about baseball, hosted by Elle Duncan and chasing what she called baseball-curious viewers. Course-correcting live sport that fast is rare. Field of Dreams on 13 August is the next test.
- Every Story This Week Is About the Space Around the Moment: YouTube is selling pre and post match attention as inventory. Unrivaled is building off-season touchpoints. Hammer is monetising his audience off-platform. TikTok is defending live. Netflix is learning what casual fans actually want. If the moment isn’t the whole product anymore, what is your version of the surround sound?
Shownotes
Transcription
Ed (00:01.713)
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Attention Shift Podcast. I’m joined by Andy Marston as ever. Andy, good to see you again.
Andy Marston (00:08.435)
Yeah, good to see you Ed.
Ed (00:10.397)
Cool, so here we go. Let’s dive straight in. So YouTube Creator Pulse. They’ve done a report around what’s been going on in in for creators around the the World Cup. And the interesting stat statistic even is 66% of Gen Z fans use YouTube before and after the live sport or event itself. So YouTube are calling that surround surround sound of the game. Interesting.
they’ve used Erling Haaland as one of the creators, and they’ve called him a creator, not a player, in the context of this report. And they are now using this as a means to steer brands towards takeovers and selected lineups, which are some new features that they’re pushing that creators are able to do. So I think what’s interesting here is is that like something I think that certainly I’ve talked about for quite some time, and I think you know it’s it’s always been a mindset that.
The moment that matters is not necess necessarily just a game window, but it’s far bigger than that.
Andy Marston (01:09.813)
Yeah, I think as you’ve seen with a lot of the engagement, particularly on digital with streams, it’s like people just almost want that like company around it. Like they want to see what the reaction is or like in the build up, like how are people thinking about this? And then what’s people’s reactions post game. And that’s almost like the more social part than the actual match itself. So yeah, I think it’s almost like a digital group chat kind of.
element right like people want that validation of like people also moaning about that penalty decision or people also moaning about that red card they want to see what like other people’s almost interpretation of of the event was i don’t know if that’s also how you see it but
Ed (01:54.705)
Yeah, I and I d I think I think the reality is I was chatting to my daughter the other day and we were talking about Netflix and and she just describes that as T V, right? So th it’s it’s amazing how things have transitioned and how you know, ultimately you see how you see it. But I think similarly a lot of the people who are watching that kind of social content on YouTube now, those discussions, those conversations, they just see that as sports content, whether it includes rights or not. I don’t think it really matters to people.
Because if it’s good content and there’s good opinion in there and whether they agree with it or disagree with it, it entertains and it makes them feel part of it. It’s the kind of content they want to consume. So don’t get bogged down about who has the rights, where it sits. Doesn’t really matter to them.
Andy Marston (02:33.362)
Yeah. And I guess one other thing to shout out would just be like Erling Harland’s rise during this World Cup has been incredible. And like outside of obviously Spain being the winners of the tournament, he’s probably the winner from an individual perspective in terms of like how much positivity I’ve heard around him post and during this World Cup.
Ed (02:38.749)
Yo.
Ed (02:53.583)
Absolutely, yeah. And I think the way he’s lent into showing his experience and there’s been a real halo effect around him and Norway and everything that they’ve done at the World Cup at the fans and the row and but the way he’s really lent in to try and give a different perspective behind the scenes of what it’s like to be at a World Cup. And I saw Seb Lazardo actually post about this on LinkedIn today. Not only that, he was pointing out that look, these all these things you know about Erling Haaland, right? No one’s saying anything new in terms of who he is. Have a look at what he’s done with
dubbing. He’s now d I think he’s I think Seb said he’s now dubbing his content in forty one different languages and you look at the the the spike and and Seb’s saying that actually yes part of that is the way that he’s really lent in to create the content that he’s had but part of that is he’s making it accessible to audiences all over the world too. So the sweet spot of putting all those things together has seen him have a meteoric rise over the last five, six weeks.
Andy Marston (03:31.38)
Mm-hmm.
Andy Marston (03:46.901)
Yeah. And I think it’s also like the element of authenticity that he brings to all of his content, like particularly on Snapchat, like he’s sharing stuff as if it’s like your mate in that you’ve got on Snapchat sending you like a meme with a filter that like he’s like not afraid to look silly or to like kind of be a bit goofy. And I think that kind of like really enamours him to a lot of people because they’re like, oh, he’s not trying to be this big shot. Like I’ve spoken to a few people that don’t even follow football and they’re just like, I love Harland now.
which I just think is like, yeah, it’s interesting and good to see that kind of like positive side of football and social media. like, he’s basically everything that’s kind of good about the world cup and this kind of like additional access that you get through platforms like Snapchat and YouTube and others.
Ed (04:35.409)
Absolutely. I think that that there’s real there’s real benefit there. I suppose you know, there’s benefit to the Norwegian national team, there’s benefit to to the platforms. It’s not just him centric the way he goes about doing this. It’s gonna be really interesting to see how he now coming back into Premier League season once he’s had his holidays, and I’m sure he’ll be sharing loads of stuff while he’s having his holidays as well, but coming back into that sort of week to week club scenario, how he continues to do that. ‘Cause I think he started about a year ago out of YouTube and dabbled a little bit.
And there’s quite a few people that were talking about what’s he gonna do next, how’s he gonna go about it, and he and I think he’s taken his time to find the way that he wants to do it. And and like I said, like they’ve obviously thought about this is the plan now, and it seems like everything’s worked out for them exactly how they plan to work out for it. And I think it’s not done any harm that his performances and the way that Norway have performed in general as a team too, everything’s just come together. now he’s got a real opportunity to build on that too. But I think you’re right, the point you made there about how
It’s not just about football fans. Like people want to understand who he is as an individual, what his personality is, what he believes in and and everything that comes with it too. And he was gr I saw like obviously he’s done everything he’s done during the World Cup and then I think the next day, I think he was at some fashion event in Italy, dressed up like you know, and he really transitioned to almost like a he he twenty to sort of a to the fashion side of things as well. So it just feels like Clearly there’s a plan to everything, but it doesn’t look forced.
Andy Marston (06:03.762)
Yeah, yeah, I think it’s a great example. There’s been a few players that have gained like huge followings off the back of the cup, but I think he’s probably in the best position to sustain it long term.
Ed (06:12.773)
Absolutely. all right, then next story. So Unrivaled Coffee Club. so they are doing a Unrivaled, which is the basketball event that happens once a year in the US. They’re doing a coffee club event in Chicago on the twenty fourth of July, so later this week. there are gonna be some sponsors involved in this too. interestingly, every slot filled on this this coffee club event in under an hour. And for for
For for unrivaled who are not, you know, the main league, they are this upstart league that have come into basketball. To be able to do something like this in the off season as a fan touch point, I think is telling. I think you made a really good point earlier about why coffee club is important compared to how most of these events do happen, right?
Andy Marston (06:59.604)
Yeah, well, with sports pundit, I’ve kind of tested it obviously with a lot less demand than unrivaled have, but we do like the social drinks where I to invite people for drinks, but I think potentially a networking drinks or anything that involves alcohol is maybe more intimidating to some people, but also it’s not potentially exclude some people. So I think the fact they chose for a coffee club, particularly given that, you know, the demographic that they’re.
probably trying to appeal to, I think is telling. And I think maybe more inclusive. And then I quite like the way that they’ve then got the players involved in terms of like, I think the players are taking turns to do like shifts as the barista. So like you’ll be getting surgery coffee by the players. So it’s like a nice little touch point with the athletes. It brings them together in a way that I think is slightly unique. And then I think it also opens up a ton of other commercial opportunities off the back of it because, know, why wouldn’t Nespresso or some other coffee
related brand now be like, maybe we could do something with unrivaled or yeah, I just think there’s so much that it, that it potentially creates for, for them as a league. And like, I’ve seen quite a few football clubs now doing like, you’ve obviously got like PSG doing the Mason and you’ve got like, let’s go doing like Casa at Letty. think you event is to doing something around pre-season called Casa you Ventus. So you’re getting like these like pop-up.
Events and I think it’s that shift of like everything’s digital. Therefore we want physical It’s like almost like the equal and opposite reaction
Ed (08:34.407)
Yeah, it’s interesting as well, ’cause it like like it did sell out really, really quickly as well. And and I think to to to lean into your point, like we talk I talk a lot about, you know, streaming and digital and and all those experiences, but but I think what it is doing is it’s it’s fostering a craving for more physical touch points. And I think look, it does make life easier to get players to these kind of things when there’s no alcohol involved as well. ‘Cause you think you’re gonna just generally have less problems.
And I think people phan potentially gonna be a little bit more level headed with their opinions if they know alcohol involved as well. I don’t think it does any harm. and you can see that unrivaled are trying to make sure that they don’t just pop up in that, you know, month, six weeks period every year. They want to ensure I think it’s the same thing that that major events like the Olympics have, right? Where they’re going from one event to another and then what happens in between, like you’ve got to try and keep those touch points with your fans both
Digitally but also importantly physically too, in between.
Andy Marston (09:34.867)
Yeah, yeah, they’re a tournament, right? So they happen during the off season and they’ve kind of been designed in a way where like they’re meant to fill the gap while the NBA season, WNBA season isn’t happening. So they like deliberately sit in that kind of summer window. But I think the other point and I’m not…
Entirely versed on exactly how unrivaled works, but I believe they have a fixed location and then they play the occasional game where they go on tour and play at WNBA stadiums as well. But they have a fixed location in Florida. So this event happened in Chicago. So again, like if they’re trying to build a fan base across the U S and create residents with other cities across the U S. Then this is an interesting way to do that, where you’re getting some visibility to the players. You’re getting touch point with the brand outside of.
those that are based in Florida, are those willing to travel to Florida to watch kind of the regular games? Cause I think you’ve seen this a little bit with the other challenger leagues, like a Baller league or a Kings league where like they essentially, and I think it’s a smart model for a challenger league cause it reduces your costs in the short term is like have a fixed venue. You build everything out of one venue. So Baller, I think are based out of Miami as well for the U S one. And then for the UK, they’re out of London and they just play all the games at the copper box.
Having a fixed venue allows for much better economies of scale as a startup league, because infrastructure-wise, you’re not having to think about moving everything around and you just need one space. But then having this as something which can travel allows you to create physical touch points with other markets.
Ed (11:05.137)
Yeah, so you get hybrid and l and also the the logistics as well, that that some players will be based in Chicago, so it’s easier to get them to come to an event rather than have to travel down to Miami and and all the logistics involved in that too. So you it is a two pronged as well, definitely.
Andy Marston (11:18.133)
Yeah, you’ve probably got, I don’t actually have it top of mind in terms of which players are there, but you probably have WNBA players for the Chicago franchise that are nearby and that also play in unrivaled and can come along.
Ed (11:30.269)
Yeah, without a doubt. Cool. Okay, next story. So Caleb Hammer. I I mean I didn’t know who he was until until I started looking at this, but for those who don’t know, Caleb Hammer just built a second front door to his membership. So from a membership perspective, YouTube takes 30% of every membership dollar that you generate. So what Caleb Hammer’s done is launched a standalone app called Hamreley via a platform called UScreen.
He’s currently got an audience 115,000 paying subscribers, and that that generates between $9.99 and $14.99 a month. So he’s got the same membership, but he’s done it on a secondary platform. They’re not actually offering anything fundamentally different, but ultimately the secondary platform takes a much smaller cut of his revenue. And if anyone doesn’t know Caleb, Caleb is almost like a US version of a Martin Lewis Money Saving Expert, whereby he gives financial advice. He’s got a number of different platforms.
But it’s interesting ’cause we I you know, we talk a lot about how do you off platform v your audience from places like YouTube which are anonymous to you, and this is someone else trying to take a different route to do that.
Andy Marston (12:37.075)
Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve seen this a few times. remember an example I kind of cited to you when we were discussing kind of putting this itinerary of content together was Ninja. I think back in like 2019, maybe Microsoft tried to launch like a rival to Twitch or to YouTube called Mixer. And they did like an exclusivity agreement where they basically said you can’t stream anywhere else. And it flopped because
Essentially all of his audience was on Twitch. so like, by not having that kind of like ability to kind of slowly migrate people across, it was actually really hard to get people to just turn up in a new place because the habit is around the platform. And as much as a creator might have some pull, there’s like, there’s an infinite number of creators on YouTube or Twitch. So actually like, do you just end up shutting yourself out as the creator? I think in terms of taking the hybrid approach, I think that’s probably the right, the right move. I guess the challenge is still like how you create enough.
Again, tying it back to my own thing with sports pundit. I’m like, I have people on WhatsApp. Do I try and launch like on circle or on like a paid sub, sub stack membership? My view is be where the people are. And actually there’s more, there’s more to gain out of having a wider, like sort of wider visibility or like wider surface area in order to reach people. So I’d rather reach as many people as possible rather than be behind the paywall.
Ed (13:53.319)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Marston (13:59.859)
And then ultimately I only need one or two relationships to be strong in order to, in order for that to benefit me. So I think it does depend a little bit on the type of creator you are and the type of products that you’re trying to push. So I guess maybe he’s made that, made that evaluation that if he gets a certain number across, that’s worth it. And he’ll just continue to monetize the rest on YouTube.
Ed (14:23.761)
Yeah, what’s I mean what’s interesting about him is like I said, I and I I made that comparison to Martin Lewis, right? One of the things he does is a show called Financial Audit. Now you can imagine the way he’s breaking things down for individuals where there will be lots of content you could probably put behind your own pay
Probably be easier to find and easier to build your own search functionality around it. But interestingly, he said that YouTube’s our bread and butter, YouTube’s a YouTube’s the platform we love until our dying days. But if anyone’s a diehard fan, we want to make sure they could join us our exclusive platform if they wanted. In everything I’ve read and seen, I’ve not seen what the value exchange is at the moment to go to that exclusive platform versus YouTube. Because, you know, yes.
You know, if you’re a member of any of these platforms, he’s then giving you access to Discord. Well, Discord’s not sitting in YouTube or this U screen platform either. It it’s separate anyway, and he’s doing that for members. I can sense that there’s lots he could do with the lots of the content he’s generating within his own platform in a I guess in a more constructed manner. it’s just not totally clear to me at the moment. It’s like, how are you going to make how do you do you when someone’s got to make a decision where to subscribe?
how you en how you ensuring they go to the place you want them to where you’re making the most money.
Andy Marston (15:37.917)
Yeah. And like also the 30 % thing, like you can argue, okay, that’s unfair, but at the same time, like how much of it’s down to the platforms giving you that visibility, right? Like a lot of it is, right? So, okay, it feels, it feels maybe high, but ultimately the number of subscribers you’re getting is probably more than 30 % higher than what you’d be getting if you were exclusive on the other platform. So it’s kind of like, it kind of comes with the territory to some degree.
Ed (15:44.955)
No.
Ed (16:02.075)
Yeah, I think you I you ch you know, Google, YouTube, they spent billions and billions and billions building this this platform white right where people go. you know, ultimately it’s it’s their choice to charge whatever they charge. And I think you’re right. You know, ultimately who’s to argue that that percentage is high or or low and ultimately that it’s their platform. They decide how they price that. I think with any of these kind of things, I’ve just got it’s one of those that if you
decide to do something that’s off platform, there’s got to be some value exchange that you can’t get on YouTube. Otherwise I can’t see how anyone would see the point of going anywhere else than where they are. And I think that’s the that I guess that’s the thing that everyone has to to think about. And I’ve spoken to a few different companies who do this, who do, you know, memberships for exclusive access to events and things like that. early access to products and services that they create, you become a member off platform.
Andy Marston (16:35.53)
Yeah.
Ed (16:53.817)
Everyone will have their own way. I can see how the kind of content that he makes could be useful off platform. but it’s one of those to sort of watch the space.
Andy Marston (17:04.275)
Yeah, personally, I would go more down the unrivaled route of like do events, learn who your audience are through events, whether that’s paid or free. And you can learn a lot from the events. You can learn a lot from doing like master classes or like workshops or like a lot of creators do courses, right? I think there’s, there’s ways around it without kind of just doing the same thing. Yeah, rather than just doing the same thing, but asking people to pay you for it in a different way or through a different platform.
Ed (17:26.971)
rather than repeating what already exists.
Ed (17:33.532)
I agree. I do I do wonder sometimes as well, is kinda like they think, well, I don’t really want to do anymore and I’m alre I’m already spending every hour that God sends to make all the content I’m making, doing extra effort as well. But I think like like you said, your example of sports pudding, right? You do these physical events for a reason that it’s to to to be more than just a digital community, to bring people to be together. ‘Cause it’s often the conversations, the side conversations that happen are the things that bring the true value.
Andy Marston (17:50.047)
Mm-hmm.
Andy Marston (17:57.951)
Yeah.
Ed (18:00.114)
And I think like I said, the the Unrivaled Coffee Club is a similar kind of thing. You will get insights by spending time with those people who are fans of your product and service like that that you won’t get in a in a Discord or a live chat.
Andy Marston (18:08.405)
Yeah.
Andy Marston (18:12.883)
Yeah, I think he could probably make products as well, either with other companies, like he could own a piece of a fintech company, for example, that like helps you with money saving, like a PLEO or, you know, one of these other kind of like fintech companies that work in that kind of like financial services space, and probably make a lot more just like funneling people towards something that he’s got equity in, rather than another membership just feels, yeah.
Ed (18:21.831)
Yeah.
Ed (18:38.033)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I agree. Okay, cool. Next story. So TikTok. just told sellers if the voice selling you a product isn’t a real person, live on camera, it can now cost your entire shop. So they are banning AI generated voices and pre-recorded narration from all shopping live streams. The limit though is animated avatars can fill more than half the frame. So you can have some AI generated content in there. but
Andy Marston (18:42.163)
Anyway, we’ll move on.
Ed (19:08.081)
The violations are now gonna start to hit your account health rating, which governs a seller’s whole account. Aff effectively you will start to get penalised if your content is AI generated and you will start to get less access to audience. it felt like this was gonna come at some point and the platforms have been having to think about how to do this, but it feels like they’re they’re trying to set a standard here.
Andy Marston (19:31.763)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, think, you know, there’s always going to be that kind of, I guess, is lazy the right word content that just kind of exists. I mean, you see it on YouTube sometimes as well. Like if you’re searching for highlights and the rights that exist on YouTube, you’ll have like, you’ll click on it and it’ll be like a photo and then it’ll be like a, it’d be like a bot basically like reading you through in the game. You’re like, what, who’s watching this other than they’ve been like scammed almost into, into clicking.
Ed (19:52.519)
Yeah.
Andy Marston (19:59.817)
So yeah, don’t use a ton of, I’ve never bought anything off TikTok shops, so it’s slightly hard for me to judge it. But I mean, it doesn’t feel like a terrible idea to limit the amount of people doing that. I guess what you want to avoid if you’re TikTok sharp is just it becoming just all bots and like no human element to it where it’s just like this now has zero value other than just people bot farming basically, which I you want to avoid.
Ed (20:16.561)
Yes.
Ed (20:25.905)
Yeah. What I what I like about it is look and displayed like we we live for live. Live is our USP, it’s where we do the vast majority of our work and what they’re effectively saying is it’s the last frontier of authenticity. That that, you know, we don’t want you faking this. If people are connecting with you for live experience to do something with you, it needs to be you and not not an AI version of you. which
I I agree with I think that that people want that connectivity and if it’s not really you then you may as well just just create some AI versions of VOD and put that out right. It’s that that live moment, that that that ability to to to understand all of your personality and how you think and how you respond is the thing that really make audiences flock toward it and and stick around.
Andy Marston (21:21.875)
Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, from that perspective, it’s probably the right call. I’m curious what technology they use to ban this stuff, because if they’re able to detect it here, why are they, or should they be also leveraging that same technology to detect it in other parts of the platform? So I guess it comes down to incentives, right?
Ed (21:41.617)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Is the other of the other things that they could be banning if it’s not impacting their revenue generation, perhaps they leave it alone.
Andy Marston (21:49.013)
Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see. But, um, yeah, I’d be curious whether they can keep up with the technology. Cause you would imagine that the technology around kind of these streamers that are creating buckets of cash from AI generated live shopping probably aren’t going to be willingly just like, Oh yeah, fine. We’ll just stop. We’ll just stop selling stuff. Yeah. There’ll be other ways around it. like, there’ll be a human sat on with that. Just basically just holding the phone and then.
Ed (22:09.309)
They’ll try and find another way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Andy Marston (22:18.759)
AI doing everything else or… We’ll see. We’ll see how they get around.
Ed (22:20.389)
Yeah. Cool. Last story. So Netflix, so Netflix did their first MLB broadcast a little while ago and it was panned as one big Netflix ad. but interestingly they’ve listened and they’ve learned and their second one was almost entirely about baseball. So for context, Netflix did a hundred and fifty million dollar three year MLB MLB deal covering opening night, the home run derby, and a field of dreams game.
the opening night which they did back in March with the Yankees Giants was slammed for cross promotion over baseball. they did all sorts of stuff with their look, they were pushing a lot of the content that that that they’re making themselves. Whereas look, they’ve tried to fix that. They did the home run derby last week and they kept the focus on the action.
Interestingly though, they brought Will Feller in, Luke Wilson and Jim Jimmy Tatro to do a a thing around the hawk, which was panned as being a bit cringy. but look, you can’t get everything right, right? They’ve learnt and they’re trying to find ways and look, there’s a reason that they do these things right, ’cause ultimately they want to try and cross promote.
Andy Marston (23:21.235)
Yeah, I thought it was quite interesting actually. So on the World Cup broadcast yesterday, they cut to Will Ferrell and he had the visor with the hawk written on it. So yeah, he’s still plugging it at every opportunity, which I think is probably not a terrible idea, right? Like he knows that the camera is likely to come to him. So I thought that was quite interesting. Cause as soon as they showed it, I was like, does this visor say hawk? And then immediately you’re kind of curious, right?
Ed (23:28.549)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ed (23:39.975)
Definitely.
Andy Marston (23:49.109)
So yeah, but going back to the Netflix thing, I think, you know, it probably does make sense if you’re gonna broadcast the sport, need to be at, like the first and main priority needs to be serving the fans that care about that sport, making sure that they have a good experience. And then obviously the more you can build into it, that helps across, the rest of your channel is great, but ultimately, if you’re gonna own a live sports product and you’re gonna be streaming it on Netflix, you need.
You need to make sure that you’re doing your best to serve the MLB audience that I’m assuming you’re hoping are coming. You’re hoping that this is an acquisition tool or a retention tool for those MLB fans. and then if there is ways to tastefully get across other content, then great, but probably, probably makes sense that they’re prioritizing the making sure they get the, the baseball experience, right.
Ed (24:31.089)
Yeah, yeah.
Ed (24:44.955)
Yeah, they obviously thought that that actually they could lean into the casual fans, the non fans, you know, that that those fans would probably find baseball on Netflix and they’d be fine with the fact that they were cross promoting and talking about other things too. but the reality is obviously if that’s where you get that content and you’re an L B fan, you’re gonna go and watch it there, like you say, and then if it starts to spoil I think I think this also ex explains why you know, often when you see
variants of of of content. So you could do you know, like do the version which is just the game, right? Everyone just wants to watch the game. But also do the version which is more entertainment led, which is more you bring creators into it, where people are are willing and accepting to have an alternate stream that’s gonna be different from the main thing. It’s not that difficult these days, you can watch it like this or you can watch it like this. And then potentially get the best of both worlds. But it allows them to test and learn like that as well. But look, they’ve
One thing, look, they have listened, right? They’ve gone they’ve tried to correct it from what they did. this they’re still getting obviously panned for some promotion that they did Will Ferrell, but the reality is what’s the difference between that and doing ads anyway? They’re trying to do them a bit more contextual. I think that’s probably the thing that’s irritated people, but I’d rather have contextual than breaking away completely from the action.
Andy Marston (26:02.387)
Yeah. And I think, you know, it would be curious. I’ll be curious to see kind of whether they do more live sport and what, what they kind of learn from this in terms of how they approach other live sport. Cause there’s probably an element of this of just saying like, okay, well, if we do live sport, how does it drive?
know, viewership of our other products. How do we cross promote it? Do we get a lot of casual fans? Cause the other thing for me is like, if I’m not a baseball fan and I see baseball on Netflix, would I click on? don’t think I would. like, they, does it work both ways? Cause like from an MLB perspective, if you’re thinking about the value of your rights deal, and to the point around YouTube being kind of a shop window, Netflix is also a bit of a shop window. is
MLB also getting promoted in other Netflix stuff that’s driving people across to MLB because then it’s a bit of give and take, right? It’s like we’re gonna like MLB is going to be promoting some of these other things. So we’re basically saying we’ll give you some of our fan base. But on the flip side, is is Netflix driving new fandom for baseball the same way that Netflix has had a profound impact on the fandom of other sports through its docu-series and things like that?
Ed (27:10.631)
Yeah. Very true. Well, interestingly, I’ve I’m I’m doing an interview with Tony Pasta this week, which I think will be out at the end of the week. And Goldhang have announced today that they’ve done another deal with Netflix now, that they are going to be continuing to create shows around the Premier League season. And when that starts in August. It it sort of ties back to what we’re saying earlier that that you know, Gen Z are quite happy to watch content in and around the event itself and not necessarily as bothered about the event itself.
Andy Marston (27:29.525)
Hmm.
Andy Marston (27:39.668)
Yeah.
Ed (27:40.444)
Netflix are not going to be paying the same kind of money for a show like that with Goldhanger as they are for MLB. I don’t know what the scale is of them potentially viewership because you’re comparing a what is essentially a UK market to a US market. But you go and do a similar kind of thing around baseball in the US, it’s not gonna cost you a hundred and fifty million dollars over three years. Potentially though, you are gonna reach a similar kind of audience. And then the expectation from the audience when that when you come back to that value exchange is well actually this is about
Talking about what’s going on in the game rather than the game itself.
Andy Marston (28:10.665)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably worrying though, if you’re selling the rights, because you’re probably thinking if, if platforms like Netflix and YouTube decide we don’t need to pay for the rights, we’ll just own everything outside of the rights. and we’re not going to pay anything or going to pay very little or the money is going to go to these creators rather than directly to the rights holder. Cause the rights holder doesn’t own the rights to.
talk about the outside of the game itself, then that becomes a challenge, right? Because if there’s still an acquisition element and someone like Netflix, especially, or YouTube, where they already have the user base, doesn’t necessarily need to use the league in the same way. Like a channel like Peacock, for example, maybe needs to pay for the rights because they’re essentially saying we’re going to leverage the brand pull or the loyalty of fans to get them to sign up to a platform that they wouldn’t otherwise maybe pay for.
Ed (28:35.953)
Yeah, yeah.
Andy Marston (29:04.551)
or like TNT Sports, I’d say it’s in a similar category, right, in the UK. Whereas if you’re Netflix or YouTube, do you need to pay for rights? If you’re not using it for acquisition and actually all you want is duration, you can probably get people for three hours pregame, three hours postgame. And just that 90 minutes in the middle, you don’t actually necessarily care about as much because at that point they’re less engaged in ads and they’re less engaged in the commercial bits anyway.
Ed (29:31.421)
Are you suggesting then potentially if that happens at scale, a world where sports rights then start to diminish because the platforms realise that actually the talkability and the content around it is just as important to people, so then then perhaps some of these big media companies are going, Well, I’m not gonna go invest in that right.
Andy Marston (29:44.949)
Mm.
Andy Marston (29:51.239)
Yeah, I mean, they’re already diminishing a bit, right? So I don’t think you can say it’s just purely down to that, but yeah, it reduces the number of potential buyers, right? Because at the moment, a lot of the power is in being able to play the platforms off each other, And so it’s like,
Sky Sports, you need to keep paying. Otherwise, you know, maybe Netflix will come in and buy the rights or maybe, you know, YouTube will come in and buy the rights batch. They decide we’re not, we’re not going to buy rights. We’re just going to own the shoulder content. Then you have less buyers. Therefore you have less purchasing. You have less kind of like a leverage, I guess, in the negotiation.
Ed (30:25.659)
Yeah, definitely one to watch. Absolutely. Cool. That’s it, Andy. Thank you for joining me this week and this week’s episode of the Attention Shift. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and if you want to feature as a guest, give us a question via our email, hello at attention shift dot media. I’ve been Ed Arbis and this has been Andy Marston. Thank you and goodbye.
- Tags: Brands & Agencies, Creators, Media Networks, Sports
